


Five Times House Was Asked About His Kid

by sasiml



Series: another chance at who you really are [2]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Gen, References to drug use for tw but I mean it's House so you should be good, honestly it's what I live for, look I have a lot of feelings about House and Rachel, oh yeah AU Post Recession Proof but like lets be honest thats cannon, unconventional familial stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-08 01:37:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6833497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sasiml/pseuds/sasiml
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to walk a fine line between fatherhood when someone actually asks you about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times House Was Asked About His Kid

The first time someone asks if he has kids, Rachel is four and he just moved in permanently. House is standing in the corner with the butt of his cane against the wall, trying to convince the parents of a near-death eight year old to let him poke around in their brain. The mother is the one who asks the question. It’s frantic and broken when he finally stammers out,

“Doctor House do you have, I mean to say, if this was your child-”

The mother breaks off and House’s eyes don’t move from the wall. The question was never finished, so technically he didn’t have to answer it, or even come up with a non answer. But he thinks about Rachel anyway. He tells the family to do the surgery. Their child comes out fine, and House goes home to his.

* * *

 

When Rachel is six he gets a call from Cuddy who got a call from the school that Rachel was throwing up in the bathroom, and he needs to pull her out of school. He’s in the middle of a case and just ordered the patients meds to be switched, so he makes a run to her school and right back to the hospital, setting her down on the lounge chair in the corner of his office with a blanket and an iPad.

“She’s sick so you brought her to work?” Wilson asks after giving Rachel stomach medication and a kiss on the head.

“It’s a hospital, it’s where sick people go. Right kid?”

Rachel sticks her tongue out at him, and the door opens as House’s newest fellow walks towards his desk. Sarah Robinson has only been on the team for a month and a half. She’s gotten the sarcasm down, the light emotional abuse and torment, but she does a double take at the small child curled up in the green chair with her thumb in her mouth.

“Who’s kid is that?” she asks.

House shrugs, letting the action contort his face in tandem. “I have no clue, I just get a call from a school telling me theres a kid for me to grab and I think that might be a nice way to - Rachel Cuddy if you don’t put headphones in that thing you’ll have a lot more to feel sick about.”

Wilson shakes his head, “She’s his.” He says, raising his hand in reassurance.

Robinson arches both eyebrows. “You have a daughter?”

“Kinda.” He says, not taking his eyes off Rachel reaching dangerously close to her orange juice for the headphones. “At least according to the state of New Jersey. Well again, kinda.”

“It's a long story.” Wilson tries to help.

“And you still let her suck her thumb?”  
  
Rachel takes her eyes off the iPad just long enough to give Robinson a death glare.“I figured braces were cheaper than therapy.” House replies.“

She’s gonna need both anyway.” Wilson says to himself.

* * *

 

Rachel is eight when he relapses. Cuddy is away at a conference, and Wilson comes over with take out for himself, House, and Rachel, and a blue file. It’s his own and Wilson has cancer.

In the span of five seconds, House can see his entire world crashing right before his eyes. The last six years, the stability, the love, he can't see it without his partner in crime.

He puts Rachel to bed and the Vicodin is in his system before he can even realize what happened. It’s knowing what it means that sends him down a spiral. He has failed to take care of his child while she was relying solely on him, he has failed to be an adequate support for his best friend. He keeps using to forget those things alone. He says he has a case and relies heavily on the nanny until Cuddy comes home five days later. Rachel runs to her the moment she’s through the front door, and Cuddy embraces her. She takes one look at House standing by the bookshelf in the corner and she knows.

Later, when Rachel is asleep. They will sit on the couch and he’ll tell her everything. They’ll both cry and she’ll hold his hand so tightly that his fingers start to go numb and it’s agreed that he’ll do a thirty-day stint in rehab.

On day twelve he sits in group therapy with an egg of silly putty and his eyes on the floor. The psychiatrist leading the discussion asks about each patients family. The thirty-something woman in a grey cardigan next to him tearfully talks about her cousins who she hasn’t spoken to in years. The balding man next to her is divorced and weeping over his ex wife. House figures he was more miserable before he was divorced, but he also figures thats just the human condition. The circle comes to an end and House is pushed to talk.

“And what about you Dr. House? What about your family? Parents? Partners? Children?”

He doesn’t look up from the putty. “My mothers still around, got a girlfriend and a kid.”

The woman with the cardigan snorts. “Don’t make me laugh, nobody’s come to visit you all week!”

House breaks the putty, making a sharp snapping sound. “Just because your biological clock has been ticking to the point where it explodes in the form of binge eating and diet pills, doesn't mean the rest of us are so desperate for families and picket fences to post on Instagram that we would lie about it in a group therapy session with a bunch of losers in rehab.”

The psychiatrist opens and closes her mouth once, and then deciding to ignore the exchange, pushes House for more. “Tell us about your kid. You have a little girl at home, right?”

He’s silent for a while, pressing his hands together to make the putty cohesive again. “Her name’s Rachel,” he says, stretching the putty between his fingers. “she’s eight. Likes music and books.” And I’ve failed her. He tries to push that thought away. Cuddy has brought him drawings and letters from Rachel the three times she’s visited. She says she misses him. He knows his family and he knows he is loved. Desperate blondes in grey don’t change the last six years of sobriety and safety.

When he gets out his said family is waiting for him on the other side. Rachel runs to him. Wilson claps him on the back and opens the passenger door to his Volvo. Cuddy is holding the leash of a ridiculously well behaved golden doodle, who is sitting on his haunches panting happily.

“Surprise.” She deadpans, kissing his cheek. “Rachel’s named him Remus.”

House groans and scoffs, but within the next two weeks the dog, (who he later finds out is a registered mobility service dog, he scoffs at that too), comes to work with him, lays with Rachel while she falls asleep, and helps him feel just a little bit better on the worst days.

Wilson is in remission within the year. Rachel never even considers the idea that House could have even come close to failing her. (Daughters love their fathers.)

* * *

 

House is sitting on the couch watching cartoons when he gets a call at 2:43 am on a Summer night when Rachel is 17.

“Yeah?”

“Mr. House, I have your kid detained here at Princeton PD.”

“What the hell?”

He makes his way down to the station to find Rachel seated in the corner with four of her friends from school. Two girls from her hockey team, one boy he had never seen before but was pretty sure he was Michael from the boys lacrosse team, and a kid who’s name he couldn’t remember but had been in and out of his house the last few weeks and was really very sure Rachel would end up dating by the end of the month if she wasn’t already.

“House!” Rachel tries to get his attention, but he turns to the cop instead.

“That one yours?” The officer asks, jerking his chin in Rachel’s direction.

“For now. What’d she do?”

“Sir, just sign here and she’s free to go.”

“Do I need a lawyer here or are you going to bother to tell me what the hell I’m signing?”

“She’s been let off with a warning.”

“Again, not answering my question.” House says, screwing up his face in mock confusion.

“Can we just go please?” Rachel interjects.

House looks at her. She stops talking.

“The boy was charged with possession of narcotics, but your daughter is not being charged.” The officer tells him.

House signs the forms, the pen slamming on the counter with a loud whack, and leaves without a word, Rachel quickly trailing behind.

The car ride home is in complete silence. Rachel sits in the passenger seat, the only noise she makes is the incessant tapping on her phone once one of her friends is released and given their phone back.

(House suspects it’s that boy. He hates that boy.)

He finally pulls up to the curb outside their house, and Rachel reaches for the door handle before House locks the car on her. He unbuckles his seat belt and looks straight at her.

“I have let you stay out all night with boys. I have let you go to Governors Ball and every fucking concert in the sketchy parts of the city you wanted to see. I’ve even let you smoke pot with your friends in the backyard. I let you do all of these things for one reason, because you came home to your mom and me with good grades and a decent head on your shoulders. I thought you knew your boundaries and the difference between what was living and what was just moronic and destructive.”

He doesn’t scream, but she almost wishes he had. It’s almost impossible not to inherit a quick temper and verbal dueling skills when you grow up around the likes of House and Cuddy and even Wilson. So when Rachel blows, she’s not entirely sure she’s justified, but she’ll fight anyway.

“I wasn’t even charged with anything!” She tells him. “You’re just mad because this time my rebellious teen acts were a little too close to home for you. It wasn’t even Vicodin it was Jackson’s mom’s leftover Oxycodone from her surgery last month!’”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” He asks her incredulously, making a mental note that the kids name was Jackson and he would not be let in to the house anytime soon. “Oh it wasn’t your drug of choice House don’t worry, it was literally the most addictive pain med on the market.”

“Hou-“

“Did you know that when they released Oxy to the public it was marketed as a non-addictive substance? Doctors just gave it out because thats what they were told to do to manage pain. Suddenly there are addicts everywhere and in one blink their lives are screwed up.”

He goes on and on, he has never in her life been this angry at her. Not when she crashed her Volvo or failed her AP Euro exam. Not when she was skipping hockey practice to meet up with a senior boy or left her phone at the airport coming home from Nana Blythe’s house two weeks after she had convinced Cuddy to give her the upgrade. He was livid.

“I’m done being the Disneyland dad, Rachel. I’m done with you thinking you can do whatever you want and I’m not going to give a crap because here it is Rachel, here is my limit. You can call your mom the next time you’re in a pickle because while you might get a lecture you might also get a ride home, I’m done.” He slams the car door shut but with the nagging note in the back of his mind that he just called himself her dad.

He takes her car keys and her phone and sends her off to bed. He gets in the tub and lets the water from the faucet pound on his head. Cuddy stirs when he gets in to bed and he tells her that he’ll tell her everything in the morning, that he’s going to kill Rachel, and that he loves her.

He doesn’t tell her how scared he once was to lose all this, and how thankful and relieved he is that he hasn’t yet. But she wraps her body around his and lets him drift off to sleep, and he knows that she knows.

He’s back to enabling Rachel within four and a half weeks, he even lets Jackson in the house and in her room. He gives her another chance for the benefit of the doubt and to prove that he raised her right. (Fathers love their daughters.)

* * *

 

The Harlem summer air is sticky and thick, and House is standing outside Brooks Hall with a shopping cart filled with brightly colored junk he was told was necessary for moving in to a college dorm. Rachel practically skips back to him from the RA’s waiting to welcome the First-Years and give them their keys. The bright smile on her face is unmistakable, and it makes him just a little bit sad.

“I got here before my roommate.” She tells him. “I can pick whichever room of the double I want.” Theres a satisfied spark in her eye that is so unmistakably Cuddy, and he can’t help but grin right back.

“Go for the second part of the room, then you don’t have to see all the idiots they bring in when you’re trying to study and only study and not going over to Columbia to meet boys.” He tells her. She laughs.

“Help me bring this stuff up, yeah?” She asks, grabbing one of the big plastic containers. He can pick out at least 7 pairs of shoes beneath the towels and bedding.

He nods at her, “You head up I’m gonna wait for your mom, so she doesn’t get lost and decide she wants a degree in some female empowerment movement.”

Rachel gives him a look, and then heads for the elevator, immediately offered help by at least three different girls.

House reaches in his pocket for his phone, and another family pulls up with North Carolina plates. The mother and daughter get out of the car, the two siblings look up at the tall buildings in awe.

House fumbles for his phone again, and a voice asks “Excuse me, where did you get the shopping cart?”

House looks up and see’s what he assumes is the father. He jerks his head towards the hall. “RA or something has them.” He looks back at his phone, typing out a text to Cuddy. _Where’d you go I’m so bored._

“Thanks man.” The father says, and then he asks, “Which one’s yours?”

House looks over at Rachel with the other girls, she’s laughing at something someone said, and re-adjusting the box in her arms. “The brunette in the purple.”

The man nods. “Well congratulations. Big day for us dad’s huh?”  
House doesn’t say anything. He nods to indicate he heard him in the hopes the guy stops talking to him, and the guy goes back to his family. House spots Cuddy coming across the quad, and he goes back to his.


End file.
